Chapter 288 - The Biggest Suspect (2)
“Several people in the crew mentioned that Todd wasn’t around for a bit before Sarah’s body was spotted, but he was only gone for roughly five minutes,” said Elizabeth. “That’s about everything we know.”
Luke nodded and looked at Elsa.
Elsa concluded, “So, Todd is indeed suspicious, but we don’t have any direct evidence.”
She looked at Luke and asked, “Did you find anything else?”
Luke shook his head. “No.”
Elsa frowned and said, “Then let’s call it a day and head back to the police department.”
Although Todd was a suspect, it was unlikely that he would run off, given his reputation in the field.
It wasn’t common for the police to crack a case in one day. The two Jennifer Perry cases were exceptions because Luke happened to be there.
Luke said, “We’ll have to interrogate Mike at another time. We should at least figure out why he was almost killed.”
Elsa nodded. “He’s been sent to hospital. We can visit him later.”
Everybody in the crew was relieved, because they could finally go home and get some rest. However, what Pierce said bummed them out. They were told that filming would be postponed until further notice.
Elsa took Luke and Selina to the hospital, while the other detectives returned to the police department to sort through the files.
They found Mike at the hospital.
The film crew was covering his medical fees. Although the accident was partly Mike’s fault, Pierce would rather that Mike didn’t make a fuss about it.
Seeing Luke come in and close the door, Mike grew anxious.
He was pretty scared of Luke after being taught a lesson.
Luke didn’t ask him any questions, and instead left the job to Elsa.
A moment later, after some prodding by Elsa, Mike finally confessed what he knew.
The person who hired him to scare people on set was none other than Sarah Poch.
The detectives looked at each other, feeling creeped out.
Sarah told him to pretend to be a body hanging in mid-air, but very soon became a real one herself.
Well, she was even worse off than Mike, who at least had kept his clothes on, while she had hung naked.
Elsa prompted Mike to continue.
In order to convince Mike, Sarah had mentioned that this was Todd’s arrangement and that Mike wouldn’t get in trouble for it.
Mike dreamed of becoming an actor and knew who Todd was, so he had accepted the task without much hesitation.
The detectives looked at each other and confirmed that something was off about Todd.
However, there was no reason for him to kill Mike.
Sarah hadn’t betrayed herself at all when she saw Mike’s performance. Even Pierce, who hadn’t been satisfied with her performance, didn’t notice anything wrong.
After Sarah’s death, nobody would believe that Todd was involved in this case, because Sarah could’ve been using Todd’s name to dupe Mike.
But if Mike had died today, there would certainly have been even fewer connections between Todd and Sarah’s death.
They didn’t get any more useful information after that.
Mike had only ever talked to Sarah and had never seen Sarah with Todd. His words couldn’t be used as evidence, and could only point them in a direction for investigation.
However, his statement did convince Elsa that Todd was a suspect.
It was a lot easier to investigate Todd alone than it was to investigate fifty people.
After that, everybody went home.
The three rookies naturally had to work overtime. Elsa simply called them and told them to continue with the investigation before she went to bed.
That was the perk of having newbies.
They had to work hard if they wanted to establish themselves in the Major Crimes Division. After dinner at home, Luke and Selina did some low-intensity training.
Selina then went to bed, and Luke continued working at night.
He wasn’t really concerned about the new case.
It wouldn’t be strange if they couldn’t find any evidence to arrest Todd in the end.
He had worked on almost a hundred cases in the Major Crimes Division, and had only cracked thirty of them. Even then, he still had the highest clean-up rate in the division.
One had to learn to give up every now and then as a detective.
The next day, Luke and Selina went to Elsa’s office and found the three exhausted rookies reporting to her.
They simply nodded at her and listened to what the rookies had to say.
After hearing their report, Elsa looked at Luke. “It seems that this case is getting tricky.”
Luke nodded. “We can’t convict Todd without any proof.”
Actually, everybody knew that the trickiest thing was Todd’s identity.
He wasn’t powerful, but he knew too many people in show business.
As long as some of them talked to the media, the media might give the police department quite the headache.
Elsa thought for a moment before she said, “I’ll follow up on the case with Elizabeth’s team. You can go work on other cases.”
historical
That way, the three rookies would get some experience and the efficiency of the team as a whole wouldn’t drop.
Luke nodded. “I’ll visit Jennifer later and see if she knows anything.”
Elsa simply nodded and dismissed everybody.
After Luke and Selina left, he called Jennifer.
It was Jennifer’s private number, which Luke had obtained yesterday. Jennifer hesitated for a moment before she told Luke that she would call him back.
A few minutes later, she called Luke. “Pierce is at my place. Do you want to talk to him?”Of course Luke wanted to talk to him.
Pierce had worked with Todd for more than a decade and would be a convenient source of intelligence.
When they reached Jennifer’s home, Luke saw that the security guards had been replaced.
After checking their badges, two new security guards let them in.
Luke and Selina met Jennifer and Pierce in the familiar garden.
Both of them were enjoying their coffee under an outdoor umbrella.
After Luke and Selina sat down, Jennifer summoned a maid, a plump lady in her forties who made good coffee.
After the maid left, Jennifer said, “Pierce, those two detectives are very capable. Something happened here a few days back, and they fixed the problem in a day. You can chat with them, and I’ll go put on a face mask.” She then left after that.